School of Statistics and Data Science, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing 211815, China.
School of Statistics and Data Science, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing 211815, China.
J Affect Disord. 2023 Aug 1;334:246-257. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2023.04.097. Epub 2023 May 4.
Weak ties are becoming mainstream in daily relationships and play an essential role in the improvement of individuals' mental health. Despite growing concerns on depression, inclusion of weak ties is limited. To address the gap, this study empirically shed light on the role of weak ties on individual depression in the context of economic development.
A cross-sectional study was conducted based on 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) with a sample of 16,545 individuals. A moderated mediation model is constructed to evaluate the impact of economic development (GDP) on the degrees of depression, the mediating effect of weak ties, and the moderating effect of residents' residence types (living in urban or rural areas).
Economic development exerts a significant direct impact on depression (β=-1.027, p<0.001). Weak ties are significantly negatively correlated with depression (β=-0.574, p<0.001), and act as a mediator between economic development and local individual depression. In addition, the residence type plays a moderating role between economic development and weak ties (β=0.193, p<0.001). That is, living in urban areas would introduce the higher the level of weak ties.
Higher economic development is largely conducive to alleviating the degrees of depression, weak ties play a mediating role between economic development and depression, and residence types exert a positive moderating effect on the economic development and weak ties.
弱关系在日常生活关系中变得越来越普遍，在改善个人心理健康方面起着至关重要的作用。尽管人们越来越关注抑郁症，但对弱关系的纳入仍然有限。为了解决这一差距，本研究在经济发展背景下，实证研究了弱关系对个体抑郁的影响。
本研究基于 2018 年中国健康与退休纵向研究（CHARLS），对 16545 名个体进行了横断面研究。构建了一个有调节的中介模型，以评估经济发展（GDP）对抑郁程度的影响、弱关系的中介作用，以及居民居住类型（居住在城市或农村）的调节作用。
经济发展对抑郁有显著的直接影响（β=-1.027，p<0.001）。弱关系与抑郁呈显著负相关（β=-0.574，p<0.001），并在经济发展与当地个体抑郁之间起中介作用。此外，居住类型在经济发展和弱关系之间起着调节作用（β=0.193，p<0.001）。也就是说，居住在城市地区会引入更高水平的弱关系。
较高的经济发展在很大程度上有利于减轻抑郁程度，弱关系在经济发展和抑郁之间起中介作用，居住类型对经济发展和弱关系有积极的调节作用。
